Cover Story
ment equation, preparing veterans for employment is the supply side. That side needed a boost. Veterans Services had only one
Charlie Palumbo, director of transition and employment programs for the Virginia Department of Veterans Services, says it needed to reach veterans 12 to 18 months before they left military service.
person in its Virginia Transition Assistance Program (VTAP) to meet with veterans before they left military service. Veterans Services also had only one person to advise vets about employment options once they laid aside their uniforms for civilian clothes. “Now, there’s a whole team …
a program manager, two coordina- tors and an operations manager,” says Charlie Palumbo, director of transition and employment pro- grams for Veterans Services. “In the last month and a
While aiming at a higher
target, the Department of Veterans Services began scrutinizing the program, looking for ways to improve it. “What we’ve learned about
highly successful programs is that sometimes they will reach a plateau,” says Veterans Services official Annie Walker. “We did a deep dive before we reached that plateau. We asked the question: What next?” Walker is a former Army drill sergeant and social worker who
heads the department’s Veterans Education, Training and Employ- ment directorate (VETE). “I’m the gentlest drill sergeant you’ll ever meet,” she says with a deep, rolling laugh. In taking a hard look at V3,
Walker and her colleagues came up with a revelation: “We needed to expand our vision. We needed to go beyond the businesses,” she says.
Boosting the supply side If hiring represents the
demand side of the veteran employ-
half, they’ve been to [military] installations 33 times to work with transitioning service members,” she says. “Virginia is a unique state in that we have so many installations and so many transitioning service members, and we also have a governor who sees them as a talent pipeline for the state.” Too often vets’ first contact
with V3 or other employment pro- grams was six months or more after they had left military service. “We knew that we had to get
to them sooner,” Palumbo says. “We’re finding the sweet spot is between 12 and 18 months before you separate from the service. If we can get to you … we can get you [prepared for a civilian career] … It’s when you come to us six months out … that we’re finding people falling off and [winding up] in the unemployment line.”
Military Medics and Corpsmen To help expand the number of
Michael Bluemling Jr., program manager of Virginia Values Veterans, met people in the military who would have benefi ted from the Military Medics and Corpsmen Program.
veterans moving into the civilian workforce, Veterans Services also has added programs. One is the Military Med-
ics and Corpsmen Program (MMAC), which focuses on help- ing former military medics and corpsmen get jobs in the health- care industry. MMAC is the first of its kind
24 JULY 2017
Top: Photo by P. Kevin Morley Bottom: Photo by Rick DeBerry
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